Choice Dole quotes

Remarks by US Sen. Elizabeth Dole at Republican Party headquarters in High Point this evening:

Attacking Democratic opponent, NC Sen. Kay Hagan:

“I want to give you a little quote from Margaret Thatcher, who said in another crisis, ‘We cannot afford to go wobbly.’ Folks, my opponent has gone wobbly…’ The Charlotte Observer said, ‘Hagan is going to have to tell folks where she stands on illegal immigration at some point.' And then the Raleigh News & Observer said, ‘We tried and tried to get her to give her position on the bailout.’ Is that a major issue or not? And she would never give her position until forty-five minutes after we voted in the Senate. Then she issued a press release. They asked her about Iraq, and she said first of all: ‘Oh well, I’m in the state Senate, and that’s not something I vote on.’ And when pressed, she said, ‘I don’t know the answer to that.’ Iraq. Illegal immigration — how important is that in our state. Drilling — she said, ‘I’ll have to read up on that.' Drilling. You look at the list of issues, and it’s important that she would not have positions on important issues that matter in this country today.”

“All of us, I think, are pretty sick of the greed and the arrogance on Wall Street today. When you look at AIG and the fact that there were billions of dollars invested in bailing them out, and then their top executives went on a $400,000 junket. Can you believe that? I mean, what arrogance. Okay, I want to reduce that, just bring it down to state level now, and let’s look at what’s happened in our own state. Kay Hagan approved a shiny, new $9 million jet aircraft for this state. We already have a plane. We already have a helicopter. So the press got onto this. And they made quite an issue of it. And they were successful. That was canceled. But not until you, the taxpayers, had footed a bill of $250,000 down payment on that airplane. That money ain’t coming back, folks.”

On union card-check legislation:

“Now, I want to talk to you quickly about something called the card-check. This one’s a bit complicated here. And you’ve seen, probably, ads from George McGovern, on television, saying, ‘We should keep it like it is.’ Workers should privately decide whether or not they want to join a union, whether we should unionize to have collective bargaining. That’s a private decision right now. And the card check, which Kay Hagan favors — because folks, she’s rolling out the red carpet for big unions, rolling it out. Why? Because they’ve sent millions of dollars to her. That card check would mean you’ve got to sign publicly whether or not you want to have a union. Now, you know there’ll be coercion and there’ll be all sorts of pressure in that respect.... You know, it’s not just that the worker needs to make a private decision, it’s also that that worker is going to lose, if unionization were to occur, a whole lot of money that’s going to big unions. And that’s, of course, a lot of money that’s coming in right now against me. Here’s another angle: Our small businesses, many of them, will be impacted by this. That would mean they would have to unionize; they’d have to sign a contract within four months, or they’d be in binding arbitration. And folks, the smallest little error in a labor regulation, they could be fined. But not big unions; they’re the ones who benefit from all of this.”

On energy production:

“Here’s where I stand: drill, drill, drill.... What I want is a comprehensive energy policy, and I want it right now. Why? When fifty percent of our oil is coming in from places like Ahmadinejad’s Iran, and Putin’s Russia, and Chavez’s Venezuela, folks, this isn’t just an economic issue. It’s not just about your gasoline prices going up. It’s about your national security. I’m a part of a gang, I admit. There are ten Republicans and there’re ten Democrats. And the twenty of us are trying to launch right now a comprehensive energy policy. Now, that means consensus. It might not have everything we want; we’ll have to build on it, but it definitely includes drilling, it definitely includes alternative sources of energy — and on that point, I definitely want to take the $17 billion that was passed in 2004 to help incentives for oil companies — well, they definitely don’t need an incentive, that’s for sure — move that right over to alternative sources of energy…. And also I’m for nuclear. And we need to conserve; we all need a crash course on conservation.”

On immigration enforcement:

“I think we start with 9-11. Right after 9-11, other states were tightening their driver’s license requirements. What happened here? Kay Hagan just voted to let illegal immigrants have the driver’s licenses. We were a floodgate for people coming into this state in droves. And it wasn’t until we passed the ID, the Real ID Act in Washington, which required the states to have a certain minimum for a driver’s license, that she cast a vote on this issue. This is so important because what’s happened with this flood of people is that you’re paying about a billion dollars a year for people with medical needs, hospitals, people in the jails, education — that’s a burden on the folks in North Carolina, because of this huge mass of people that came in, because there were just not the restrictions on the driver’s licenses.

“So, let me tell you exactly where I stand on that one: I believe in securing our borders and enforcing our laws…. In terms of enforcing the laws, [Guilford County Sheriff] BJ [Barnes] can tell you that we’ve had meetings. I’ve been all over our hundred counties, many of them multiple times, and what I’ve been doing in addition to other issues is meeting with the sheriffs, or my staff has met, I think, all the sheriffs in North Carolina. And the bottom line was to help them get the tools they need to identify, apprehend and start the deportation process among people who’ve self-identified themselves by their criminal behavior. And ICE, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, I’m so pleased to have had a year and a half of working with them because when we asked them to do a statewide plan, they did it. And they presented it to the sheriff’s association just about a year ago. And there’s a steering committee, and the sheriffs are meeting with my office as a facilitator, as well as the ICE people once a month.”

On her reelection contest:

“I am still standing, and I am going to win this election. I am the point of, is a better way to say it, of $18 million of negative, nasty, untrue advertising. Now $11 million of that comes from one Chuck Schumer. And he’s an aggressive guy who’s raised far more money than anybody can imagine. And that New York money, he’s trying to come in here and buy North Carolina. We are not gonna let Chuck Schumer’s money buy North Carolina. When you add George Soros and MoveOn.org, that adds it to $18 million.”

“What we need now is to take advantage of this last week, because, folks, this is serious business. We’re talking about the values that we care about and preserving all of the things that we care deeply about. We don’t want judges making law from the bench. We don’t want the union card check. We don’t want our taxes raised, and believe me, you’re going to get all that and more if we don’t pull out the stops. I mean, this one is a very serious election cycle. So let’s go do it. Let’s get the signs out there, make all those calls, get the e-mails going, get people to the polls. It’s very, very important for the future of this state and this country.”

“When I used to be the head of the Red Cross for eight years I used to go up to people at dinners. You know, I liked to do the ‘Dole stroll.’ I’d be talking away, you know, and then I’d end up with: ‘Folks, I need three things from you: I need your time, okay? Your money, if possible. Get others who you know who want to preserve this seat, keep our values. ‘And thirdly,’ I would say, ‘I want your blood.’ I’m not gonna ask for your blood. But I am going to ask for your time, your money and your prayers. I want that undergirding, that prayer network supporting me. And we’re going to work very hard, and we’re going to pray hard, right? And God willing, it’s going to be a great victory on Nov. 4.”